Sandro’s POV
“Don’t you dare touch what’s mine.” The voice thundered over the pouring rain.
Before my guards could even take another step toward Candice, the doors of the black SUVs flew open. Men in sharp suits poured out.
In seconds, my two best security guards were slammed face-first onto the wet concrete. Blood pooled around their jaws, mixing with the freezing rain.
I froze on the porch. My fists clenched so hard my knuckles popped.
Elias Thorne.
The man who had been bleeding my company dry for months. The billionaire who looked at the rest of us like we were dirt beneath his custom-made shoes.
And now, he was stepping out of the lead car, holding an umbrella over my dying, pathetic wife.
Candice. The woman who had spent the last three years hanging onto my every word. The woman who used to look at me like I was a god. I had trained her to be quiet. I had trained her to take whatever scraps of affection I threw at her.
She was supposed to break tonight. She was supposed to fall to her knees and beg me to let her hold the baby.
Instead, she was standing tall.
“You’re trespassing, Thorne!” I roared, stepping out into the rain. The cold water soaked through my shirt, but the heat of my anger burned it away. “Let her go! She’s my wife!”
Elias didn’t even flinch. He looked at me with eyes as cold and dead as the ocean.
“Not anymore, Rossi,” he said, his voice slicing through the storm. “She’s mine now.”
He opened the car door. Candice slipped inside.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t look back. She didn’t beg.
That was what pissed me off the most. The absolute emptiness in her eyes when she looked at me.
The door slammed shut. The engines roared, a low, guttural sound that vibrated in my chest.
I watched the taillights disappear into the dark, my chest heaving with rage.
Let her go.
She was weak. She was penniless. She wouldn’t last a day out there. She had no friends. I made sure of that. She had no family who cared about her. Eleanor made sure of that.
She would come crawling back the second she realized she couldn't survive without my money. She always did.
And when she did, I would make her beg. I would make her sleep on the floor outside the nursery just to hear the kid cry.
I turned around and stormed back into the mansion.
The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut behind me, cutting off the sound of the storm.
“Sandro!” Paula rushed toward me, clutching the baby. Her eyes were wide, playing the perfect, terrified victim. “Did you stop her? What if she goes to the press? What if she ruins us?”
“Shut up, Paula,” I snapped. I didn't have the patience for her whining tonight. She was beautiful, yes. She was the woman I actually wanted in my bed. But when she panicked, her voice grated on my nerves.
“Don’t you tell her to shut up!” Eleanor shrieked, marching down the stairs. Her face was pale with absolute panic. Her expensive silk robe billowed behind her like a bat’s wings. “Do you realize what just happened? She left! If she actually files for divorce, the shares go with her! My husband’s entire legacy, gone! We will be ruined!”
“She’s not getting a divorce,” I growled, walking over to the crystal decanter. I poured myself a heavy glass of scotch. My hands were shaking, but I downed it in one burning swallow. “She has no money for a lawyer. I’ll freeze her accounts. I’ll starve her out.”
As I turned toward the living room, something caught my eye.
Lying on the marble floor, half-hidden under the console table, was a thick manila folder.
Candice must have dropped it during the struggle.
I walked over and snatched it up.
The logo of the city’s top oncology center was stamped on the front.
I ripped it open.
Pages of lab results. Scans. Blood panels.
My eyes scanned the heavy black text.
Stage IV.
Metastasis.
Terminal.
Estimated time: Three to four months.
The breath caught in my throat.
She wasn’t lying.
She wasn’t pulling a pathetic stunt for attention. She was actually dying.
A bizarre thrill shot through my veins. I had spent years pretending to care about her. Years touching her skin when I was thinking of Paula.
Years waiting for the moment I could finally take full control of her father's empire without having to look at her naive, trusting face anymore.
“What is it?” Eleanor demanded, snatching the papers from my hand.
Her eyes darted across the medical jargon. She froze.
For a second, the room was dead silent. Only the ticking of the grandfather clock echoed in the vast foyer.
Then, a slow, dark smile crept across my face.
“She’s dying,” I whispered.
Eleanor looked up, her panic instantly morphing into cold, calculating greed. The old woman was a snake, just like me.
“If she dies before she signs the transfer…” Eleanor muttered, her mind spinning. “The shares go into probate. The board will tear us apart.”
“No,” I said, the realization hitting me like a rush of pure adrenaline.
“If she dies while we are still legally married… I inherit everything. As her widower, I get the controlling shares. I get the company. I get it all.”
Paula smiled from the couch, rocking the baby. “So we just have to wait?”
“Exactly,” I laughed, tossing the medical file onto the floor like a piece of trash. It landed right where Candice had stood an hour ago.
“Let her run to Thorne. Let her play her little games. I will drag this divorce out in court for years if I have to. I’ll bury her in paperwork. She’ll be dead before a judge even looks at the first page. We won.”
I slept like a king that night.
I dreamt of the board of directors bowing to me. I dreamt of Candice’s funeral, wearing a sharp black suit, pretending to wipe a tear for the cameras while I pocketed billions.
I woke up the next morning feeling untouchable.
The storm had passed. The sun was shining through the massive windows of my bedroom.
I poured myself a cup of black coffee and walked down the hallway toward my home office. I was ready to call my lawyers. I was ready to freeze her credit cards, lock her out of her own trust funds, and block every legal move she tried to make.
I turned the brass handle.
But when I opened the door, my blood ran cold.
Sitting perfectly in the center of my mahogany desk was a sleek, black envelope.
My security system hadn’t tripped. My guards hadn’t seen a thing. The cameras showed nothing but static for exactly three minutes at 4:00 AM.
Someone had been in my house.
Someone had stood in the very room where I kept all my secrets.
My hands trembled as I picked it up. The paper was heavy, expensive.
I broke the wax seal.
Inside was a single, terrifyingly thick stack of papers.
Expedited Decree of Divorce.
Already signed by a judge.
But that wasn’t what made my stomach drop. That wasn't what made the air leave my lungs.
Beneath the divorce decree was a second stack of papers.
Bank statements. Offshore account numbers. Wire transfers.
Every single dime I had embezzled from the company over the last three years, documented down to the penny. The shell corporations. The fake vendors. The money I used to buy Paula her diamonds and her silence.
And beneath that… high-resolution photographs.
Me and Paula. In hotel rooms. In my car. Kissing in the shadows of the company parking garage. Dates, times, locations. Everything.
A small, heavy cardstock note fell from the bundle and landed on my desk.
The handwriting was sharp and elegant.
Sign the divorce papers by 9:00 AM, or these go to the District Attorney and the press.
Enjoy prison, Rossi.
— E. Thorne.
